Join us for a special reading with the Millay House Writer-in-Residence Joanna Young, followed by a conversation with our 2024 inaugural resident, Melissa McKinstry.

Joanna Young is the writer-in-residence at Millay House during the month of October, 2025. Chosen in a juried process by Gretel Erlich, Joanna is a poet residing in Searsport, Maine.

Joanna’s poetry is a conversation with the landscape. She defines it as a “call and response” – listening for the deep rhythms of the landscape where she lives and finding language for an answering call that arises out of the body and the land.  Like the mural painted by the artist and naturalist James Prosek on the wall of the Farnsworth Art Museum, Joanna’s poems speak to her strong connection to Maine’s natural world.

In addition to her poetry, Joanna is developing a one-woman play based on Anne Sexton’s letters and the searing memoir written by her daughter Linda Gray Sexton. 

During this reading, she will share selections of her poetry as well as an excerpt from this theatrical work in progress. This will be followed by a conversation with our 2024 inaugural writer-in-residence, Melissa McKinstry. 

Cost: Free to attend; pre-reservations are recommended. Museum admission is not included with the reading.

Presented in partnership with the Farnsworth Art Museum